signs of God in Albert Square

God, I just know this is going to bring about a bazillion Google hits, but I can't resist.

Every once in a blue moon EastEnders manages to hit a nugget of the real thing. They came close recently when Kevin Wicks quoted Samuel Beckett (a quote so well embedded in the script that it didn't even show unless you knew the quote, and they even got the bit before the famous bit of the quote) and referenced Derek Jarman in the same episode. That was the bit where Kevin turns up at Dungeness, having been missing for over a month, and has an existential encounter with a young vagrant played by the bloke who played Mr Guppy in Bleak House... well, that came close, but wasn't quite the real deal. The thing is, the truly transcendental moments on the Square always, & I mean always, involve Dot.

Once, when I was burbling on about human nature, la comedie humaine and cheesy scene-editing, a friend of mine told me nothing amuses her more than the spectacle of her most intellectual friends trying to develop a construct to justify something they like watching (mentioning another friend of hers who likes Mulder and Scully). But sometimes you don't really need the construct. Sometimes a story just manages to go somewhere deep. As the books will tell you, this is almost always because of something in a character, which is why the Derek Jarman routine never got above (very enjoyable) kitsch.*

A week ago it was a storyline like any other: Yolande starts "helping" Dot out at the launderette, because she's trying to run it singlehanded since Pauline left - I mean, died. Then Dot becomes convinced she's no longer needed, and then she sinks into a depression. Jim takes her away for a day in the country, down to where they used to go hop-picking in Kent (just like in Of Human Bondage), and the day becomes one of those EastEnders set pieces (like the Dungeness one, but without the jokes about Scotland).

The hop fields are gone, and there's a museum. The farmhouse, where "it used to be all mud and barking dogs," is all cleaned up and gentrified. Dot and Jim stand there looking stricken. Dot wants to go visit her old hop-picking friend, and on the way there she stops at the local church, only to find that her friend has recently died. She goes to see the friend's son, who was a vicar, but who now turns out to have renounced his faith in favour of a pastiche of cultural relativism, i.e., big fat Nothing. He becomes a bit ugly, despite his Free Tibet T shirt - blaming his mother's religion for his loss of faith, and explicitly blames Dot for all the trouble with her son Nick (his childhood playmate, see) (currently languishing in prison: not sure what they've done with the erstwhile cancer storyline). Dot is now precipitated into total crisis. Not only is she completely useless, and not only are her memories all destroyed, her world oder turned on its head, but she is accused of having been a failure all along. She makes Jim stop so she can go into the church again to pray, and when she gets into the church she finds a baby in a basket, and sees a young girl running out of the church.

Well, reader, you know what comes next! The baby has been given to Dot by God. God has given her another chance. She is going to give the desperate girl a chance. She takes the baby and leaves a note with her address on the notice board. It's a Sign.

This has been a classic couple of days: Jim's ill-fated visit to the sleazy "gentlemen's club" in Dartford - address found on a flyer in the basket with the baby; the sub-plot about Big Mo thinking she's being haunted by the ghost of Garry and Lynn's lost baby, because she keeps hearing crying;* Jim's "good-citizen" call to Immigration to shop the girl. Dot, get this, doesn't even go to church on Good Friday. There is, of course, the almost obligatory current-affairs, educating-the masses aspect, as the story by now involves the lovely young Russian-sounding girl, an illegal immigrant of course, who is the mother of little Tomas - but, because it is the EastEnders Easter story and is all about Dot, it soon overtakes all that. By the end of tonight's episode even Jim can feel the holiness and realises that Anya (as well as Dot) is the child of God.

Maybe you had to be there.

I feel Dot's inability to feel needed after the death of Pauline - her fear of losing Jim as well - her questioning of how, after all, she belongs to the world - is being played out in ways that would not disgrace Tolstoy.*** The immigration officers follow them to the church, where Dot has taken Anya for sanctuary ("where all o' God's lambs can find shelter"), and Dot stands there implacable in the opening of the rood screen, her arms held straight out to the sides so they can't enter the chancel."I will not let you pass!" she says. "I ain't scared o' yer. I'm a woman o' Christ, and Jesus' hand is on my shoulder, and the mark of 'is love is on my brow, and 'e will not let me be swept aside in 'is father's house."

Anya gives herself up but leaves the baby to Dot & Jim (the immigration officers don't know about the baby), whispering in Dot's ear while she hugs her goodbye, "I trust you." Dot runs out and stands in the dark night waving helplessly as Anya's white face recedes... the closing shot is Dot & Jim standing huddled together in the dim gold light of the church, near the altar, cradling the swaddled baby.

Gulp! Dot is the hero of EastEnders.

* Mr Guppy to Kevin: (something along the lines of) oh yeah? Well what makes this Jarman geezer so flippin special then??

Kevin to Mr Guppy: He made films. (menacingly) And I like films.

** Sadly, Ms B laughed like a drain when Mo ran over to beg Garry for forgiveness for always calling him a plonker, with rolled-up loo roll sticking out of her ears "like the Easter bunny"...

*** I say this advisedly, in light of the kischiness of the Russian novelists and in particular the Tolstoyan brand of it. It's not Dostoyevsky and it sure as hell ain't Chekhov.

n.b.: this has been brought to you in the place of the previously scheduled report on time travel, vis-a-vis this week's final episode of Life On Mars.